but only in the mind. Across the lea,
where sleepy heifers graze on Haw Pike’s grass
or sprawl out underneath a buttermilk cloud,
I see the bluebells reaching up towards
damp haunches, ferns and forest garlic shroud-
ing steep wet banks, the flowers of ripe gourds.
I climb the summits of two Yorkshire hills
and see dismantled rails, the viaduct
buried by growth above a brook that rills,
dead as the ruins of Hag Head Laithe, tucked
far from the stacked-high cairn of Beamsley Beacon.
I see five dew-lit spans alive with lichen.